A group of 7 suspected terrorists in North Carolina may be tried with secret evidence. The group is accused of plotting violent jihad through a series of terrorist attacks abroad.

The alleged leader is 39-year-old Daniel Patrick Boyd, a U.S. citizen who trained in militant camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan during the 1980s. He returned to the U.S. after reportedly fighting Soviet forces.

In general, secret evidence is obtained through covert means and could be anything from wiretapping to checking emails or going into credit cards transactions, investigative journalist Wayne Madsen explained to RT.

“Obviously the U.S. government is hiding the means by which they obtained this evidence," said Madsen. "It’s always the case with sensitive sources and methods. They might have used informers and they want to keep those people secret.”

“But this might be a way that prosecutors are trying to test the Obama administration, just to see how far they can go with these types of prosecutions,” Madsen added.